UPDATE July 6: It’s been a long, scary night with hundreds of aftershocks. We stand in solidarity with our fellow Californians whose lives are affected by this earthquake. We are so relieved to hear initial reports of no deaths and no building collapses.
All of us at Jumpstart send wishes of continued safety for residents and responders.
During an earthquake, soft story buildings pose an extra risk. Some soft story buildings collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes. Cities around California are now catching up by adopting soft story ordinances and requiring retrofits. Do you live in a soft-story building?
Whoa, was that an earthquake last night? Did you check out Nextdoor or Twitter to see if others also woke up? It’s actually good news when earthquakes hit at night instead of during the day. Night earthquakes mean fewer injuries and fewer fatalities. Let’s look into why this is the case.
Finding a house to buy is whirlwind of emotions. It’s important understand how future earthquakes might affect you, and which of the natural hazard disclosures to read closely. This is part one of a three-part series looking at the importance of location, location, location when buying a house in earthquake country.
Continue reading “Buying a House in Earthquake Country: Fault Zones”
When an earthquake strikes, the intensity of earthquake shaking determines the damage severity. In turn, the main factors affecting earthquake shaking intensity are earthquake depth, proximity to the fault, the underlying soil, and building characteristics—particularly height. Let’s take a look at the latter two (soil and buildings) and how they interact.
